


A New Kind Of Friend

by Merfilly



Category: DCU Animated, Justice League & Justice League Unlimited (Cartoons)
Genre: Adventure, F/M, Fluff, Married Couple, POV Outsider, Yuletide, Yuletide 2011
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-12
Updated: 2011-12-12
Packaged: 2017-10-27 05:47:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/292297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Booster Gold is trying to learn his team's ins and out, looking for friends as he does. Then he lays eyes on Big Barda.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A New Kind Of Friend

**Author's Note:**

  * For [empyrean](https://archiveofourown.org/users/empyrean/gifts).



There were a lot of learning curves to being on the Justice League, Booster Gold decided. It wasn't just about the heroes he worked with and what they could or could not do. It wasn't just about the bad guys showing up for their regular punch in the face, either. He was going to have to get to know the people if he really, truly wanted to fit into the way life worked around here. Starting with the prettier part of the League might have been shallow on his part, but it had gotten him one really great friend already.

Staring at the power house by the drink dispenser, Booster decided he would certainly go for it. More friends was always a good thing, right? With his mind made up, he walked right over to wow her with his debonair charm.

"Hey. Saw you standing over here, and thought I'd come get to know you, Miss…."

"Mrs. Free." The tone could have chilled a boiling pot of water, but Booster knew some people just needed to be warmed up properly.

"Seems like your name's at odds with itself by the cultural standards I had to learn." He turned on his best, warmest smile to work on the thaw she really needed. "I'm Booster. Booster Gold, just like my heart."

"I am uninterested, and quickly growing annoyed," she told him with a glare at him to emphasize that maybe this was not the friend he needed to make. Only, Booster interpreted it as a person most in need of making a friend and had opened his mouth to help her see this when someone rudely interrupted.

"Ready to go, dear?"

Booster turned a little to see a man that was about his own height, and therefore nearly a foot shorter than the woman, in a truly garish costume, complete with a full face mask. Beside the man was an even smaller man with a perpetual scowl.

"Yes." Very determinedly, the woman walked away from the dispenser with the pair of men, leaving Booster Gold alone once more.

Oh well, he'd just have to get to know Mrs. Free later.

* * *

"Booster Gold, Big Barda, Mister Miracle," Martian Manhunter finished reciting the list of heroes being detailed to help over see delicate peace negotiations. "Barda, please keep in mind that you are only allowed to hit people if they are truly, physically threatening one of the members of either delegation."

Booster looked to see just who was being mentioned, and saw the very tall woman of days before and the man that had interrupted his attempts to get to know her. A shared mission would be a wonderful way to get to know a teammate! Or even two, as apparently the man was either her brother or the Mister that went with the 'Mrs. Free'.

Beetle had said he really needed to work on his people skills, and now this mission would give him a chance.

* * *

It hadn't taken more than an hour after the negotiations began for pandemonium to break out. Apparently some woman related to a Venus Flytrap didn't like either country's policy on their plant life, or whatever. Booster Gold couldn't follow all of it, between the clown girl running around with a pair of hyenas and the fact there were several vines trying way too hard to get to know him more intimately than he was interested in.

He was totally redesigning his costume after this, with no waistband!

However, as he just sort of hung around with his new 'friends', he had to admit he had a premium view of the entire fight. Wriggling around to try and escape the tendrils only seemed to further tighten their hold on him, and he was too fond of both breathing and bits of his anatomy to struggle too hard.

He felt his entire heart sink inside him as he saw Mister Miracle get caught by a walking seaweed monster, the slimy tendrils wrapping all around the other hero. They were doomed, unless Mrs. Free aka Big Barda was really as impressive as she looked.

"Come on, Barda!" Booster shouted, only to regret it instantly as a very leafy thick vine swiped across his open mouth and settled there, effectively gagging him.

It did not, though, hinder Big Barda to be without his cheering. Booster watched as she caught both hyenas in mid-leap, slamming them together hard enough to knock even their thick skulls for a loop. The pair slid to the ground unconscious from the blow. That left Clown Girl holding a huge wooden mallet to face the angry giant of a woman whose stick thing had just begun to glow menacingly, Booster noticed.

Clown Girl ran forward, screaming about her babies, and stopped just short of hammer-swinging range. The end of the mallet popped open and a boxing glove on a spring loaded arm shot out to catch Big Barda in the stomach. As Barda folded around the 'punch', Clown Girl started laughing uncontrollably, mystifying Booster Gold.

"Harley! Get serious!" the redheaded siren of the petunias yelled across the field, her snake-like vines rapidly wrapping up the delegates in their tender loving mercies, where "mercy" meant hugging the very breath out of their bodies.

"Red, you kill all my fun!" Clown Girl complained, looking that way. When she looked back, it was just in time to have a blast, specifically from the stick Big Barda was carrying. She fell down, groaning in pain from the jolt, and Big Barda swept on toward Miss EcoTerrorist. Booster lamented his inability to cheer, and bit down on the gagging tendril, learning that it tasted minty.

He tracked the fight as he tried to chew his way free of the gag, and tried to yell as he noticed the walking seaweed -- or its cousin -- moving in on Barda from behind. He looked back to where the thing had been with Mister Miracle in its clutches, to see if they were the same, but there was a pile of seaweed and no Mister Miracle in sight off to his side.

"Hmffmmfmmmf!" Booster Gold managed to get out around the leafy gag. A moment later his head was turning toward the redhead mistress of mayhem, drawn by the scent of smoke as two pellets were set off by none other than the missing hero that had been just as tied up as Booster a few seconds before. The smoke choked the green-skinned woman, and all of a sudden all the plants started shaking and losing hold of the people they held.

Booster gratefully slithered free of his unwanted friends, glad to escape with most of his honor intact, and took off to help Big Barda with the second walking seaweed creature.

That was how the whole thing ended, too; with him covered in reeking decaying plant matter, as it exploded all over him from one of her blasts.

* * *

Booster looked up at Big Barda with a smile as Martian Manhunter commended their efforts to stop Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn. She actually smiled back at him, a tight little expression. Her true smile, though, was for Mister Miracle, who had managed to figure out the right way for everyone to escape unharmed.

The smile Booster saw on Mister Miracle's face told him that there was only one real hero in the escape artist's world, and she happened to be able to take on anything in the world single-handedly.

"Mister Miracle," Booster Gold called after Martian Manhunter was done with them.

"Yeah?" The man was already linking his fingers with his wife's, but he looked at their teammate interestedly.

"Umm, teach me how to get free of creepy vines?" Booster asked him.

"I can do that. I'll even tell Barda to go gentle on tying you up," Mister Miracle told him with a perfectly straight face under the mask.

Booster looked at the large woman with a sudden feeling that maybe, just maybe, he was in well over his head.

She just smiled, eyes glinting, for a long moment before the married couple broke into laughter, and Booster's knees went weak in relief.

"I suppose we should make you more capable of keeping up," Big Barda agreed, clapping Booster on the shoulder.

"It's all part of being a team," Mister Miracle agreed.

"Yeah," Booster agreed, feeling more stable, and thinking he'd made a couple of really awesome friends.


End file.
